


The Trouble with Flobberworms

by BoredRavenvlaw620, HeartOfAspen, In_Dreams, Kyonomiko, LightofEvolution, niffizzle, sarena



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amortentia, Chemically-Induced Lust, Crack, Dreadful Pick-Up Lines, Easter Eggs, Explosions, F/M, Flobberworms, Group Collab Fic, House Elves, Multi, Nipples, Potions, Potions Laboratory, Science, bunny slippers, but only once or twice, hence the rating, nerds at work, secret porn stash, we are not sorry, we are sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:56:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18633082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoredRavenvlaw620/pseuds/BoredRavenvlaw620, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartOfAspen/pseuds/HeartOfAspen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_Dreams/pseuds/In_Dreams, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyonomiko/pseuds/Kyonomiko, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightofEvolution/pseuds/LightofEvolution, https://archiveofourown.org/users/niffizzle/pseuds/niffizzle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarena/pseuds/sarena
Summary: Flobberworms and everything you always wanted to know about them. Or not.An enthralling Dramione love story. Now with a secret side-triad!This is what our imaginary readers say:“Un-be-liev-able!”“A must read for everyone who ever exchanged oxygen and carbon dioxide!”“Are you nuts?!”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, LightofEvolution had an idea… a silly idea. A very silly idea. Not only was the idea very silly, but it involved uniting nerds from across the globe. By our powers combined, BoredRavenvlaw620, HeartOfAspen, In_Dreams, Kyonomiko, LightofEvolution, niffizzle, and sarena have made a… something. What follows is ludicrous, so do proceed with caution, and please mind the flobberworm goo.

Hermione was sure of it: this was the worst first date of her life. Hell, it was the worst date in the history of hominoid life on Earth.

It had started alright. Terry Boot had brought flowers, complimented her casual outfit, and offered her his arm for Apparition. Hermione had expected he would take her to a restaurant in Diagon Alley, but instead—

“How am I supposed to eat this? There's no cutlery! Maybe I should call for a waiter and—”

“With your fingers!” Hermione hissed between clenched teeth and, in demonstration, pulled a few chips from a red and gold carton, dipped them in mayonnaise, and stuffed them into her mouth.

“Well, that's rather… uncultivated.” He glanced at the other tables as if to make sure she wasn't the only one eating like that.

“What did you expect? It's a fast food restaurant.” One where she had brought their meal to the table because he had simply sat down after ordering.

Terry blinked at her, confused by her mood, and explained, “I thought you, as a Muggleborn, would like something familiar for our date.”

Hermione swallowed her chips and every biting reply she could think of and counted to ten in her head. She had promised Harry she'd really give dating a try, and that probably included not hexing the date's balls off after five minutes.

“Well, anyway, we're here now and have to make the best of it,” she settled. “What is it that you do for a living, Terry?”

“I'm a writer.”

“Oh, fascinating. What do you write?” she tried to make it sound as if she indeed found it, and him, the least bit interesting.

“Occasionally, I am freelancing for different magazines, but my focus is on my fictional writing. I'm working on a novel. It's a bit of crime, a bit of romance, a bit of mystery, a bit of comedy. About a young Auror who's making his way up the ranks of the Ministry.”

This time, Hermione was genuinely interested and leaned forward, careful not to touch the table in front of her. Who knew which germs lived there? “That sounds very promising!”

“You are a curse-breaker, I heard?” he then asked and finally started eating his burger cautiously.

Of course, he had 'heard'. Hermione was the best curse-breaker in Great Britain, having surpassed even Bill Weasley when he had decided to take some family time and become a stay at home dad. “Yes.”

Looking at his sauce covered fingers in disgust and wiping them on a napkin, he continued, “I have some experience in the matter myself.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I wrote an article for The Wizard a while ago that required a several weeks long internship at Gringotts.”

“Several weeks. Aha.” Well, that was totally comparable to her years at university and in the field.

“It was impressive how fast I learned all the things there.”

“ _All_ the things? _Aha_.” Couldn't he hear the thinly veiled sarcasm in her voice?

“Now that I think about it and look at you,” he let his gaze wander over Hermione, from her well-worn sneakers to the errant curls escaping her hastily pinned bun, “maybe my Auror character needs a partner, a curse-breaker like you. A bit of a wallflower, but sexy in a subtle way.”

What was happening here? This was supposed to be a _date_ , wasn't it? Not some kind of fictional character job interview.

“Do you sometimes wear glasses, Hermione?”

“No!” She really didn't, but her occasional lab-partner did, much to her endless amusement.

“Pity. Oh, and the female character of course needs a solid background. What do you do in your free time? Read books? Are you an artist? Do you play the flute or the piano?”

Hermione had absolutely reached her limit with this man. He was just another idiot in the long line of men she had tried to date. “I am doing… stuff,” she answered evasively, not in the mood to explain what 'stuff' her hobby entailed.

“We should really discuss this in depth. Maybe we should venture to somewhere more… private?” This man had chutzpah. First (epically failed) date and he wanted to take her 'somewhere private'?

Just when she was about to fish her mobile out of her handbag and feign a 'my mother texted and thinks she left her stove on and I have to check her house now' emergency, a tall man entered the establishment. His dark brown eyes searched for someone, and he looked visibly relieved when he spotted her. _How did he even know she would be here?_ she wondered for a second, but then the man had come to a halt in front of her table.

“Theo! What a surprise!”

Terry looked at her friend as if he came from an entirely different planet. Not that his outfit was something new for Hermione because she often saw him in his lab coat with the many different, oddly coloured stains. She knew there were some things you never got out of the fabric, not even with magic. In stark contrast to her (ex-)date, she was actually happy to see Theo. Though, her smile faltered and she knew something wasn't entirely right when she discovered some new, still smoldering holes in the lab coat and a singed eyebrow.

And the panic in his voice when he started talking rapidly. “Hermione, you need to come with me. _Now_. I think I might have accidentally killed a Malfoy!”

Hermione was already half in her jacket and out of her chair when she asked, “Jesus, Theo. Which one?”

Instead of giving her an answer, he muttered, “There was a BOOM and then… I don't know what happened exactly.”

“Okay, Theo,” she tried to calm him down. “We got this. Everything is going to be okay. Probably.”

Suddenly remembering Terry, she turned to the other wizard with an apologetic expression. “I am so sorry. We'll have to continue this…” Politeness demanded she said something like 'sooner or later', but this was Hermione Granger. “Never.”

 Terry appeared disappointed, but she was already at the door, Theo pulling her after him in hurried concern.

What in Merlin's name had happened in the lab?

***o0o***

“Mmmmm, that's nice,” Draco hummed, trying to shake the fog of sleep. There was a moist, soft sensation trailing across his cheek. Something was definitely not right, but he could not figure out what it was at the moment; meanwhile, the feel of her lips on his skin was too delicious to disturb. He had waited so long for Hermione to finally succumb to his advances. She never took him seriously.

He reached out to draw her soft, curvaceous body closer. _Wait… definitely not right._

Instead of a mass of the swottiest swot who ever swotted, his hands groped blindly through the air. Draco reached up to his face, his brain still lingering somewhere between theta and alpha waves as he attempted to drag his mind and body back into consciousness. Instead, he found a slimy, wriggling interloper.

Running his hands down the length of his body, he found more of the same… and beside him on the… floor? There was that lingering inexactitude again. Why was he on the floor, and what was he covered in?

Forcing his body to cooperate, Draco rolled to his side and pushed into a sitting position, disregarding the grotesque squelching beneath his fingers and the disorienting vertigo. He attempted a deep breath only to find his nasal passages blocked by a thick mucus.

He lazily swiped at his face, blinking several times to bring the room into focus. What happened in the lab? The last thing he remembered, he had been retrieving an ingredient for Theo and the next… BOOM!

Before he could ask himself any further questions, his clouded brain registered voices approaching. Deciding to give up the quest for answers, he flopped back onto the slimy, writhing floor.

***o0o***

Lucius dipped Narcissa over his arm and unleashed a Malfoy smirk for the ages. She was stunning adorned in shiny scarlet satin; the dress was cut low between her still—ripe bosoms, and with a daring ruffled slit high on her toned thigh.

She straddled his right leg intimately, her back bowed beautifully, pushing her breasts out in invitation—an invitation to which Lucius was eager to RSVP. Just as he bent his head to swipe his tongue along her luscious valley, a _pop_ sounded throughout the ballroom, bringing his lascivious intent to a halt.

“Y-young Master Nott s-sent me to tell you he w-wents to gets help,” the elf croaked out, wringing its spindly hands together.

Lucius and Narcissa (now standing straight), peered at the elf, awaiting clarification.

“Th-there was an explosion, i-i-in the dungeon,” it finally stammered.

“I told them not to convert the dungeon to a lab.” Lucius rolled his eyes heavenward. _When would those boys learn?_

“Do you think young Theodore will have returned by now?” Narcissa asked as she adjusted her dress, pushing her breasts up.

“Let's find out, my dear.”

***o0o***

“Theo, how many times must I tell you to clearly label your containers? Colloidal suspensions and solutions react differently in potions due to the particle size!”

“I don't need your lecture right now, Hermione.”

“Fine,” Hermione huffed. “I'll lecture you later.”

“Fair,” Theo agreed as he popped them away to Malfoy Manor, where they landed in the entry hall. Hermione shook her arm free of Theo and rushed off toward the subterranean lab.

The studious curse-breaker and the Malfoy parental units all reached the dungeon entry at the same time. Moments later, Theo nearly crashed into Hermione's back as he joined the rescue party.

“Theodore, darling,” Narcissa cooed as she adjusted her ruffled skirt to reveal more thigh.

“Mr Nott,” Lucius practically purred as he eyed Narcissa, then Theo in turn.

Hermione did not have time for whatever might be brewing in the hall. She needed to ensure Draco made it out of the lab safely, firstly, and then secure any remaining volatile compounds or modified biologic samples that might have escaped. Transfiguring her clothes into the proper personal protective equipment, she tore off down the stairs.

In the years since the war, Hermione had not only established her lucrative and successful career as a curse-breaker, she had also dabbled in potion development and magizoology, her understanding of Muggle chemistry and biology giving her a unique edge. Her friendship with Theo had begun while perusing ingredients at the apothecary, and she soon found herself in the company of Draco Malfoy. Things with the blond pureblood were awkward at first, given their history, but they soon gave way to playful teasing. Frequently, Draco would have a right laugh at the ridiculous advances men often made toward her.

Hermione found the lab in complete disarray, with an equally disheveled Draco sprawled out on the floor and covered in flobberworms... genetically modified flobberworms designed to breed at thrice the normal rate. _This might require specialist equipment._ “Theo, send for Luna. She's the only one I know that can handle a magical creature containment of this size.”

Hermione groaned as she watched the quickly multiplying worms wriggle their way across the floor of the room, their numbers visibly expanding.

***o0o***

Luna was unsurprised when she heard the rapping of an owl's talon on her window that evening. In fact, she'd had a premonition earlier that day over her breakfast cereal that she would be receiving a summons for her services, and she had prepared accordingly. As the day wore on, her confidence never wavered; she had even worn her protective gear during her evening yoga practice.

“Just a moment!” she called from her downward-facing dog pose.

The owl ruffled its feathers indignantly.

Once she had finished breathing through it, she stood upright again and made her way toward the window to let the owl in. It threw the letter down on her yoga mat in a spiteful manner and flew off without waiting.

“Oh! An emergency at Malfoy Manor,” Luna read with some difficulty, as she was holding the letter with the thick rubber gloves that were a part of her elaborate protective gear. “Best get there straight away.”

She took off immediately—but hazmat suit or not, she left barefoot, her shoes and socks still neatly stacked by her yoga mat.

***o0o***

Hermione massaged her temples and closed her eyes as she leaned against the wall of the contaminated dungeon-turned-laboratory. “You still haven't explained why you're using flobberworms, Theodore.”

“Oh. Right. That. Well…”

From where he still lay on the floor, semi-conscious and covered in flobberworms, Draco interrupted them with a groan. His eyes cracked open. “Hey look. Granger's here.”

“Yes, so you've said,” Hermione replied wryly. It was true; he had announced her presence at least five times in the last fifteen minutes while they waited for Luna. He must have hit his head pretty hard.

“Hey, Granger?”

“What is it now, Malfoy?”

“Are you a carbon sample?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes. “You know I'm not, Malfoy.”

“Are you sure? Because I really want to date you.” With a final snicker at his own joke, his eyes fell shut again and he seemed to slip back out of consciousness.

“I don't get it,” Lucius muttered under his breath to his wife. The two of them were still standing on the staircase that led into the lab, torn between concern for their only son and a desire not to cover their clothes and shoes in flobberworm goo.

Hermione knew Draco was not in his right mind, or he would not be saying such things. For the past few years the two of them had kept up a lightly flirtatious banter, but it had never progressed into any other sort of dalliance. By now, she knew him to be all talk. Picking her way through the globs of slime on the floor and trying her best not to smoosh too many flobberworms (this was not entirely avoidable), she made her way toward Draco to check on his pulse.

“Are you awake?” she queried brusquely, wiping the ugly, wriggling things away from his face.

“Want to… lick a lemon…”

“He's delirious,” she announced to Theo.

“...And suck salt off your collarbone…”

Her cheeks colored of their own accord, “Er…”

“There's just something about you… that screams tequila, Granger.”

“In fact, we might need a Healer from St Mungo's as well,” she added to the collective audience, tucking her curls behind her ear.

“Mmmm, such a nice neck…”

“Malfoy,” she warned as if she were chiding a young child.

“Not into tequila, eh, Granger?” He snickered again, sounding somewhat unhinged.

She might have been more affected by his words if not for the fact that she had to work hard at keeping flobberworms from invading his mouth whenever he spoke. “Not really, if you must know.”

“Mmm, I bet you'd be into a good fuck in the library…”

Her pulse seemed to thrum a little faster under her skin.

“...Take you up against the bookshelf, and recite wizarding history to you…”

“Theo!” she exclaimed, feeling entirely too warm and like she needed him to stop talking immediately. “Do you have something we can give him for extreme confusion? And quickly?”

“Hnh?” Theo queried, distracted. Narcissa had been rubbing his shoulders tantalizingly, while Lucius had been rubbing hers. “He already seems pretty confused to me…”

“Not to _make_ him confused,” Hermione hissed impatiently. “To _fix_ the confusion!”

“Oh. Hmm…” he waffled as Narcissa increased the pressure she was putting on his shoulders. “Not sure…”

“Forget it,” she snapped. “Just go back to tinkering in your lair, you vampire. Your friend is in trouble and you're getting a _neck massage!”_

Narcissa smirked, while Lucius eyed Hermione distastefully. “Draco will recover. The Lovegood girl will fix the situation. You said so yourself.”

“I said no such thing!”

Theo blinked at her twice, “Vampire?”

“Yes, because you never _leave_ this lab. And to think—I was _glad_ to see you earlier… and you were _concerned_ about Malfoy…”

“I am concerned! What do you want me to do?”

“How about starting by actually answering some of my questions?”

Just then, they all felt the Manor's wards shift to allow someone entry into the house.

“That'll be Luna…”

“Shall we act the part of the dutiful parents and retrieve Miss Lovegood, my dove?” Lucius queried, his hands dropping from Narcissa's shoulders.

The elegant woman's hands also fell from Theo's shoulders, but gradually, until only her fingertips ran down his arms. “We shall return soon, Mr Nott…”

Hermione rolled her eyes again at the duo's departure. “Good Godric, I'd say that starting those dance classes has been good for the two of them, except it's caused the both of them to go into perpetual heat.”

“What do you mean?” Theo queried.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

He only continued to mutely look back at her.

“You are the most oblivious wizard I know.”

“Is that why you called me a vampire?”

She could have pulled her hair out and screamed in frustration. “Yes. Now go fetch a bag of blood to suck on or something to keep yourself occupied. _How_ you're so smart academically, but _this_ ridiculous socially is beyond me.”

“You're one… to talk… Granger…”

“You shouldn't be talking _at all,_ Malfoy,” she snapped, turning her neck back in his direction. “You're going to end up with flobberworms in your mouth.”

Leaning back against the laboratory wall, she had to question: when had her life come to the point that she was waiting for the arrival of Luna Lovegood to finally… _hopefully_ inject some sanity into her life?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some days it was physically painful being the only sane person in her world.  
> (Hermione Granger, at innumerable points of her life)
> 
> Alas, let the insanity continue!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge THANK YOUs to everyone who has read, left kudos, and commented! We had such a blast reading your reviews and we're thrilled that so many decided to accompany us on this insane journey. All our hearts to you! 💙💚💜💛❤
> 
> If you're looking for the Easter Egg reveals from the first chapter, please check our end note.
> 
> But first, enjoy the next chapter 😏.

Luna approached the laboratory, peering with wide eyes at the wreckage through the thick lens of her protective helmet.

“Oh, my,” she commented, fixing Hermione with a stare. “What has happened here?”

Hermione scowled at Theo, folding her arms across her chest. He shrugged, his expression innocent as Lucius Malfoy's foot twisted around his ankle. A hand with long, manicured nails ran along his arm, and Hermione shook her head at the elder Malfoys.

Some days it was physically painful being the only sane person in her world.

“Draco?” Luna asked, floating into the remains of the lab – Hermione cringed at the sound her bare feet made as they squelched through the thick layer of flobberworm residue – and stared down at the blond, who wore a dazed grin.

“Hermione!” Draco exclaimed, chuckling as he rubbed his head. “You must be made of – what's the one – Uranium and Iodine because all I can see is U and I –”

“Don't!” Hermione cried, pressing her hands to her temples, “finish that sentence.”

“Marvelous creatures, aren't they?” Luna asked, even as she crouched down to inspect a handful of flobberworms. “And to have so many of them here! What a true gift.”

Hermione might have laughed at the situation, and the way Luna's protective trousers – rendered effectively useless – were so much wider than her bare, narrow ankles.

Theo stumbled forward, nearly crashing into Hermione, and she blinked at him while he stared, wide-eyed. He cast a suspicious look back over his shoulders; Lucius and Narcissa stood side-by-side, banal smiles upon their faces.

“Okay, Luna,” Theo said, straightening the blue and green scarf he insisted on wearing, even in the lab, “we've had an explosion. We need your help removing the flobberworms so we can properly assess Draco.”

“I'm fine,” Draco grumbled, as he pressed a hand to the floor and attempted to stand. He wobbled a little and fell back on his arse; Hermione and Theo winced in tandem at the sickening sound of flobberworms being crushed. Luna released a small gasp of terror.

But Draco cast Hermione a lascivious glance and she rolled her eyes as she looked away. Further into the lab, Luna began collecting specimens in some sort of bag with a floral print on it.

“Oooh!” Draco howled as he stared, his eyes heavily lidded, while sweeping his fringe out of his face with a sticky, slobbery hand, “I'd like to calculate the slope of those curves!”

“Enough!” Hermione cried, and everyone's gaze snapped to her, except for Luna who was holding the bag closer to her face and squinting at the Flobberworms inside.

“Do you know,” Luna murmured, “these are _unusual_?”

“Yes,” Hermione breathed, clinging to the last shred of her patience, “they were specifically bred that way.”

“They are copulating right here in this bag,” Luna carried on, shaking her head in wonder.

“Two becoming one,” Draco said with a sage nod. “Did you know, _one_ is a very powerful number in numerology. Symbolized by the unicorn.”

Luna nodded and smiled at him. “It's quite fascinating, isn't it?”

Narcissa released a guttural sound of disgust and took a step back, Lucius staying by her side even as his gaze remained fixed on Theo, who, oblivious, gave a mild shrug.

“They aren't all that fascinating covering every surface of our lab,” he said. “Do you think you can take care of them?”

“Take care of them,” Luna echoed with a hopeful gasp. “I can have them? Oh, Daddy will be so pleased. Although, there are quite a few, aren't there?”

“We're studying them here and need them contained once more,” Hermione bit through clenched teeth, before conceding, “although you may keep some.”

Draco rose to his feet and crashed into the nearest workbench as he attempted to put on his glasses and Hermione jolted forward after him.

“Don't you know, I think I'll write a memoir?” he commented, turning to Theo for a response, who blinked and shook his head.

Hermione pressed the back of her hand to his slimy forehead, checking for a fever. “What has a memoir to do with any of this?”

“A terrible career choice,” Lucius drawled from his position outside of the laboratory. “Come, Narcissa. Shall we step away while the children clean up this mess?”

Hermione released a sigh; it would be useful if the chaos were diminished.

“Lucius is keen to paint the mast on his latest model ship,” Narcissa announced in an aside, tittering a laugh as she caught Theo's gaze. “Do let us know if you need anything, Mr Nott.”

Theo scratched the back of his head. “I think we've got it covered, thanks though.”

“Perhaps you can send an owl to St Mungo's?” Hermione asked as the couple turned to leave. “I think Draco might be suffering delusions.”

“Very well!” Narcissa tossed over her shoulder as they walked; there was a tinkle of laughter followed by a deeper chuckle as the couple rounded the corner.

Hermione took a deep breath and looked around the destroyed lab – she didn't know whether she preferred Draco spinning terrible lines or waxing philosophical. Theo was gazing around with a vacant look while Luna appeared to have initiated some sort of ritualistic fertility dance with the bag of flobberworms.

Overwhelmed, was a good way to put it.

***o0o***

"Wait, they did what?"

Hermione was staring at Luna in confusion and mild horror. It had been a few hours since the explosion, and Draco was now receiving treatment at St. Mungo's while Theo had disappeared upstairs with Lucius and Narcissa, but Luna had already found some answers.

"It's really fascinating," the woman said, folding the notes she'd spread on the heavy desk in Lucius' study into a neat stack and completely ignoring Hermione's question to please fucking repeat the lunacy she just uttered. "I mean, I'm sure you hadn't intended it at the time, breeding them that way, but who could imagine the effects? Oh, I really must thank you again for calling me. Father will want to work on getting a piece published right away!"

Rubbing her temples with her forefingers, Hermione tried again to clarify. "I'm glad you're enjoying this. So, what you're saying is we turned flobberworms into living aphrodisiacs?"

"Yes, completely." She grinned.

"That explains Lucius and Narcissa rubbing all over Theo," Hermione grumbled back, but was startled when Luna giggled at her.

"Don't be silly, Hermione. You have to touch the worms, of course. Or at least their secretions. The Malfoys are just naturally amorous.”

“So the only one affected so far is Draco?”

“And myself, and let me tell you, I'm having a really difficult time not taking all of my clothes off and giving you a neck massage, myself.” Luna nodded at her enthusiastically. “But he took quite the dose, I must say.”

Hermione was a little disappointed. She had attributed his more aggressive flirting to the head injury, but it was something else entirely to have it confirmed that it wasn't natural. There was no use denying it any longer… she had enjoyed his attentions, at least a little. Deep down, she had known he was all talk... _hadn't she?_ More than anything, she was irritated with herself.

“Well,” she announced, wiping her hands as if a task was complete, “I'll just head back down to the dungeons then. Make sure Theo isn't cleaning up with his bare hands and trying to shag the house elves.”

“I'm sure it's much more likely he is involved with Mister and Missus Malfoy than a house elf, Hermione.”

She blanched in response. “I'm not entirely sure that's better.”

“Really?” Luna looked honestly confused. “House elves are so small. That seems rather problematic.”

Hermione was mildly disturbed Luna had felt the need to visualise. She didn't have time to comment on that before Luna went on a little dreamily, “Plus Draco's parents are both so pretty, don't you think?”

Well, that was certainly true. Truthfully, they were gorgeous, but Lucius looked a bit too much like Draco and the whole thing just felt all kinds of not right.

“Yes, well, many things are beautiful,” Hermione deferred, not at all wanting to answer the question. She picked up her beaded bag and headed to the door.

“Won't you be stopping by to visit Draco? I'm sure he's feeling quite lonely. The effects have likely worn off by now, but he'll be left a bit weak and disoriented.”

Hermione thinned her lips. _Visit Malfoy and possibly have to endure his awkward apologies for acting as if he finds her attractive?_ _Or seek out her other friend and brave the possibility of finding Theo and the elder Malfoys engaged in intimate activities?_

“Are you sure you don't need help before I go?” she tried, subtly pleading for an excuse. “Do you need me to… I don't know… scrape flobberworm scum out of the bag or something?”

_Yes, that honestly sounded more appealing to her right now. Merlin save her._

“I couldn't possibly, Hermione. I might miss important observations! You're very kind to offer, of course, but I can handle it on my own - and besides, I'm headed home myself. Go on and visit your Slytherin friend.”

Luna pushed her out the door gently but firmly. Hermione wasn't sure which friend she'd meant to visit. _Apologies or orgies?_ Her evening was going to be awkward however you sliced it.

She wasn't even sure where she would go until she was standing there, ready to knock on the door. With a fortifying breath, she rapped with her knuckles twice and called out, “It's Hermione,” wondering what the response would be from the other side.

***o0o***

Draco felt as if his mind was stuck in a clouded haze as he peeled his eyes open to reveal a spinning swirl of surrounding sterile whiteness. It took several seconds for his vision to refocus and for him to recognise the bland decor to be that of one of St. Mungo's private rooms. Only then, after a few more fleeting moments of confusion, did the events of earlier that evening come crashing back into his memory.

Suddenly, Draco was reminded of the way he had splayed his arms across the dungeon floor, swimming through the sea of multiplying flobberworms as if he was competing in his own personal choreographed swim routine. But even more embarrassing was the recollection of how his chat-up lines had continued to tumble out of his lips like an object in motion with no counteracting force.

It had taken _weeks_ to prepare those lines just for him to waste them all in a span of twenty minutes while he had flobberworms crawling over every inch of his body. As if he didn't already have a hard enough time getting Hermione to take his advances seriously!

He wasn't sure he would ever be able to bear facing her after that disaster, but then there was a knock on the door and the sound of her voice announcing her presence. Not waiting for a response, the bushy-haired witch entered the space before he had the chance to beg her to spare him from the inevitable awkwardness.

As she approached the hospital bed, she gave him a weary smile which transitioned into a look of mild discomfort the closer she got. “You've, uh, got something, or rather, several somethings on your neck,” she said, tapping a spot underneath her jawline.

Without a moment's hesitation, he swept the contents off the stainless steel tray on the bedside table and flipped it over to assess the damage. Draco immediately winced at his warped reflection. Lining the length of his neck were no fewer than ten love bites, the lingering evidence of overly affectionate flobberworms. Somehow his day had managed to get even worse!

Draco groaned as he returned the tray to its original location and threw the peasant-level thread count bed sheet over his head. “If you're here to mock me, get it over with now,” he grumbled, knocking his head back against the pillow.

The mattress shifted as Hermione settled onto the foot of the bed. “I'm actually just here to see how you're doing.”

Draco hesitantly lowered the bed sheet and eyed her suspiciously. “And how did you draw that short straw?”

“Luna's too enthralled by this new offshoot of flobberworms, Theo is cleaning the lab, and your parents went running back to the manor chasing after him.”

“Of course they did,” Draco muttered to himself. What his parents did was their own business, but he would prefer if they kept his friends out of it. “Can't we discuss literally anything else?”

Hermione quirked an eyebrow. “Would you rather talk about that infestation of red splotches creeping up your neck?”

Another groan escaped his lips. “Not much better,” he said followed by a shudder. “I can still imagine their mucus secretions slinking over me.”

“Could be worse,” she returned with the faint traces of a teasing smile. “You could have woken up with extra appendices or something.”

She briefly snickered at her own remark, only causing Draco's confusion to grow. Much to his surprise, she had yet to bring up any of his… _comments_. They may have what she considered to be a purely innocent, flirtatious relationship, but even he knew he had crossed a line while his better judgment had been impaired.

“You aren't going to demand an apology?” he eventually asked.

“For the love of Charles Darwin, no!” Hermione quickly dismissed with a sharp shake of her head. “I'll save us both from that agony! I mean, yes, you were on an aphrodisiacal high and your delivery was more questionable than it is on an average afternoon, but it wasn't that different from our usual banter, right? In some ways, I almost expected you to have another lame line to try on me as soon as I walked in this room.”

Draco chuckled despite his apprehension. “I'm afraid I'm fresh out.”

“But it can't be that hard to come up with another!” Hermione casually countered. “You could have easily pretended to no longer remember who you are and insist on being called 'Bond, Covalent Bond.'”

Draco tilted his head and stared at her in confusion--partially because he still didn't know what to make of how easily she brushed off his most recent advances, but also because he simply didn't understand the reference.

“Bond? Like James Bond?” she clarified.

“Who?”

Hermione laughed, evidently enjoying his lack of knowledge. “You poor, Muggle film history deprived man! Once you get out of here, I'll have to introduce you to the wonderful world of cinema so you can brainstorm more, um, jokes.”

Yes, jokes. That's all she saw them as.

Draco tried to push aside his disappointment and think of a reasonable response, but there must not have been enough kinetic energy for him to muster up a reaction before she pushed herself off the bed and stood up.

“Well, it's getting quite late, and we both could use some sleep after the day we've had,” she resolved and then sighed to herself. “Although, I suppose I better stop by the manor to make sure no house elves are currently being harmed.”

“And what in Salazar's name would be wrong with the house elves?” he asked, once more confused by yet another of her statements.

Hermione rolled her eyes before surrendering herself to a grin. “You don't want to know,” she assured him as she made her way to the door. “Sleep tight, Malfoy. And the next time we're back in the lab, I'm keeping my ion you.”

As she left, Draco could have sworn he saw her wink, but it was probably just his groggy mind's imagination.

***o0o***

After a restless night, Hermione flooed back to Malfoy Manor in the too-wee hours of the morning, but not even the bitter taste of her pitch-black coffee could drown the images of last night's dream.

Draco's lips everywhere, trailing kisses and licks from her jaw over the deliciously sensitive spot on her neck to her collarbone and down, down, _down_ …

“Good morning, Miss Granger.” Mrs Malfoy's voice pulled her out of her daydream too abruptly, the woman sipping on a cup of tea while she watched Hermione with hawk-like eyes.

Hiding her emanating growl behind the rim of her YETI cup, Hermione responded to the greeting a little too-curtly, but Narcissa had known her long enough not to begrudge her morning grumpiness. The elder woman's rosy cheeks were added proof of the events that must have taken place last night. As if the telltale, heavy bumping of a headboard against a distant wall deep inside the house hadn't been enough. Hermione shivered _in memoriam_ and declined the polite invitation to breakfast.

Those noises had been the reason Hermione had only quickly checked the general welfare of the house elves—for once, she forgot about promotion… it was too close to _procreation_ anyway—and then had shoved a dazzled-looking Theo into the chimney before he could deepen his search for the source of the not-so-subtle noises, all the while insisting that they contained an underlying _Theo, Theo, Theo_.

She'd believed him.

Twisting her hair into a schoolmarm-bun while she traipsed down the narrow, winding stairs to Malfoy's self-declared lair, her hopes for a couple of quiet minutes were granted as she saw Theo's holey lab coat still hanging outside of the heavy, wrought-iron door (iron to keep out the fairies, as Luna had explained). Hermione didn't even bother with the maim switch (yes, it was a _maim_ switch! Draco had told her _stories_ about uninvited Death Eaters meeting their well-deserved early demise, because, of course, if there was a red button, somebody just _had_ to press it); instead, she tugged on the shiny wheel with her left hand, pushed three fingertips of her right hand exactly twenty-two point thirty-six inches from the top of the door against the rusty metal while her left foot hooked into the nook on the bottom of it. She looked like a monkey with that grip, and for the five-hundred-twenty-second time, she cursed Draco's nth great-grandfather for his stupid ideas for a dungeon.

The ominous screeching of the hinges made her roll her eyes every time, but Draco refused to grease the little buggers, claiming the sound gave his lair lab a certain flair. Scanning the big room with their equipment, she noted the reinstated cleanliness with gratification; Luna was worth the Galleons and excessive weird talk every single time. Maybe they should just employ her, considering Theo and Draco's wild, unbridled love of experimentation.

Hermione shot a hesitant glance towards the ominous Malfoy refugium separated from the rest of the working area by a deep, murky moat which shouldn't be possible to exist within a dungeon. He'd told her once, both their minds having been addled with too much wine and chocolate, that the bottom of it reached to the Underworld; a direct connection to the River Styx, he'd claimed.

The door to his office standing open, an irresistible temptation pulled at her curiosity. Draco was always so adamant about keeping the library he had in there under wraps.

Glancing behind her, she locked the vault door with a swish of her wand and hesitated. The breach of trust was undeniable, but she needed to make sure that any more future experiments wouldn't risk Draco's life. Or Theo's, either.

With a deep inhale to fortify her resolve, Hermione carefully walked over the retractable bridge further into the office. Eyeing the school of piranhas moving in hungry circles in the dark water underneath, she was sure the squid in there waved at her with a lascivious leer. She sneered at him; one day she'd cut him into yummy little sushi, and if Draco didn't want a piece, she'd eat it all alone.

She entered the room with light steps, soaking the scenery up like she'd once drank the chocolate from a chocolate fountain with one of those huge straws one got on Mallorca. A big frame hung behind his leather chair, the scenery on wizarding canvas unexpectedly empty, resembling more of a still life with its arrangement of a sole couch and a table with a pitcher of water and an assortment of fruit. It seemed that a central motif was missing, and maybe this meant it was the painting Draco planned to inhabit after his death. But she was here for the books, not for unfinished paintings.

Every single shelf in the room was groaning under the weight of books. Hermione took a look at the section which seemed to waver in the air. Her hand bumped into a soft shield charm, but it gave way and she blindly pulled out the first volume she grabbed.

_Naughty Brunette Witches with Wild Hair_

Hermine blinked and took out a different one.

_How to Tame your Screw_

She pulled out another one.

_Witches' Secret Caverns Spread Open! Now with moving pictures!_

Heat suffused her cheeks, no matter that _core features_ of the depicted witches on the cover were obscured by censor bars. It was Draco's porn collection he was guarding like Wizarding kind's greatest treasure? Half-curious, half-dreading, she pulled out another one.

_Pick-up Lines for Science Nerds: A Guiding Companion with Guaranteed Success!_

With a surprised startle at her unexpected discovery of what he clearly intended to remain his secret, private collection, Hermione shoved the books and magazines back onto the shelf. She did not bother with the proper order, and turned to his desk instead. Correspondences lay scattered on it, parchment mingling with plain and more sophisticated paper. She stepped closer to have a fleeting look at one of the letters written on thick, creamy parchment.

_Young Draco,_

_In fact, I am aware that you finished your Potions Master training three years ago and have now reached the ripe age of twenty-six. You have done this in my, The Esteemed Potions Master Herrero, Recipient of the Noblus Prize and Bearer of the Wand of Spain, potions lab._

_I don't care; you_ are _young, Draco._

 _But alas, when will you finally listen? Do not add Veela hair to a three-quarter finished Potion of Persuasion! And don't think I haven't seen right through your veiled words. This whole business of wooing your witch with scholarly means is a fair bit excessive. Just throw her over your shoulder and carry her to your bedroom. This has worked the past fifty millennia, and worked like a charm with my_ (the writing was struck through to the point that it almost pierced through the parchment, and in a decidedly different script, one word seemed to have been added before the letter continued) _beloved wife of twenty-five years. Sometimes she even goes down_ —

Hermione dropped the letter like a hot potato. Grabbing another one, she unrolled the scroll and skimmed the words until a voice loomed from behind her.

“Hermione? What are you doing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Easter Eggs in chapter 1 (no particular order):
> 
> The Trouble with Tribbles - Star Trek, the original series (shout out to blueeyedsue!)  
> The Creature You Know - In_Dreams (and twice at that! ;) )  
> The Library - sarena (mentioning something you liked doesn't quality as finding an egg, we're afraid ;) )  
> The Eagle's Nest - HeartOfAspen (ok, that one was very subtle :) )  
> Interns - BoredRavenvlaw620 
> 
> And now there are even more and new ones in chapter 2... happy hunting all! 🐰


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something shattered, and it wasn't Draco's ego.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you for your continued support of our Flobberworm-madness! We giggled like crazy reading your wonderful comments. So many of you found our Easter Eggs! 💙💚💜💛❤
> 
> If you're looking for the Easter Egg reveals from the second chapter, please check our end note.
> 
> Now, off to the next chapter 😏.

_Damn._

“N—nothing?” Usually Hermione was a competent liar, but the moment she spotted him, she had difficulty concentrating on being able to find a decent falsehood.

Striding in from the door to his office, Draco looked nothing like the half-mad scientist he was. For once, he wasn't clad in his lab coat, but rather, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt Hermione had given him last Christmas as joke present. Across the front, it read: _'If you were a concentration gradient, I'd go down on you!'_

Well, now it was her heartbeat that would not go down.

“To me, it looks like you were rummaging through my _very_ personal things, Granger.” He was only a few feet away from her now, and his expression was carefully blank.

Nervously, she answered, “I was looking for Theo's fantastic pancake recipe. Yes. He told me he'd hidden it in a very safe and secret place, and…” She could feel her cheeks growing hot and knew she was blushing guiltily.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” He was smirking now, obviously not believing a single word, but the pink at the tops of his ears indicated he was not as suave about this situation as he wanted to appear.

“No. I only found your…” she hesitated, then decided that she was an adult witch and could say it out loud, “porn collection.”

“Oh… _that_!” He sounded oddly relieved. “Well, young wizard in his prime and all that.”

Something shattered, and it wasn't Draco's ego. Another, stronger explosion reverberated through Hermione's every bone, and she was thrown to the floor, her head making unpleasant contact with the stone floor. Whatever had exploded must have ended quickly, for the dungeons fell quiet only a second later.

A wave of magic washed over her—heavy ward magic, it felt like—and finally, she took a short inventory of herself. Legs, arms, head: all intact, although a bit shaken. But there was also a heavy, warm weight on her torso and between her legs. She opened her eyes and was only mildly surprised to see Draco blinking at her from behind his 'reading' glasses. He was also lying on top of her, his long legs stretched out between hers.

Seeing that Draco was okay enough to smirk at her a moment later, Hermione snapped, “And _this_ is what happens when you add veela hair to the Potion of Persuasion, you idiot! I swear, one day I am going to analyse a sample of your DNA just to check how much ferret and cockroach is really a part of that stupid brain of yours!”

Seriously, she _would_ do that. What she did not feel like doing at the moment however, was pushing him away. His warm, male weight on her was somewhat comfortable.

“You can sample me all you like.” He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively, still settled snugly between her legs. She fought hard against her instinct to wrap them around his hips. Eyes widening in sudden shock, he demanded, “Wait! You read the letter from Master Herrero?”

“Maybe?”

Draco groaned and let his forehead fall on her left shoulder, muttering, “This wasn't how this was supposed to go.”

Sensing his distress (and hers, because she was curious to discover the meaning behind the letter), she inquired, “Why did you even do that?”

“What?” He raised his head again. Suddenly, their faces were only about two inches away from each other.

“Throw yourself on me?” she clarified.

“Because I wanted to protect you,” he explained, somewhat accusingly.

Oh right, the explosion… the cause of which, they had yet to investigate. “That's actually…”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Old-fashioned, anti-feminist, rude, primal—“

“—quite charming, was what I wanted to say,” she finished, attempting a stern McGonagall-glare because he had interrupted her.

Draco cleared his throat, causing his abdominal muscles to contract, which gave Hermione an even more hands-on experience at how impressive he was. “Does the Knight in Charming Armor get a kiss as a reward now?”

He was obviously teasing, but to her own surprise, Hermione replied without correcting his Muggle reference, “Why not?”

Without giving it a second thought or a moment of hesitation, she pressed her lips to his. He was soft and warm, and he smelled so good; he made a small, surprised sound that caused her to smile. It was perfection.

“Shall I pull away again? We could check what kind of ruckus shook the Manor, but this is so much more entertaining.”

With effort, Hermione turned her head. Two pink, fuzzy bunny slippers appeared in her line of vision—or at least, the part that wasn't taken up by blond hair and annoyingly stunning grey eyes that stared disbelievingly at her.

It was Theo. In nothing but his pajama bottoms and his infernal slippers. Had he arrived to the manor in the morning wearing _that_? Or had he undressed, done something unspeakable, and then put on his pajamas?

Shaking out of his trance, Draco glared up at his friend, though he made no movement at all to leave his current position. “Merlin, Theodore! You are interrupting something here!”

While Draco started detailing to Theo where he could shove his bunnies, and asking him why he was not wearing a shirt, Hermione felt some wetness at the back of her head. Concerned that she had bumped her head harder than she originally thought, she brought her fingers to her hair. Indeed, they came back sticky and covered in something liquid. She looked at her fingers and gulped audibly.

“Are you hurt?” Draco asked, concerned enough to cease his questioning of Theo.

“No. But I am afraid Luna didn't catch all the flobberworms.” She held up her fingertips to show the two wizards that they were coated in flobberworm intestines.

“Oh f—” Theo started, but Draco stopped him by pulling Hermione to her feet rather hastily.

“There's an emergency shower in the back room of my office,” he urged, leaving Theo behind, their hands still laced together. “I had hoped for slightly different circumstances when saying this to you, but you should strip, Granger.”

“Why, Draco, I thought you'd never ask.”

Their progress toward the emergency shower came to a screeching halt.

Hermione gasped. Clearly the flobberworm lust goo traveled to the limbic system posthaste.

The ensuing internal debate went something like this:

Rational prefrontal cortex: _Get in that shower now._

Amorous amygdala: _Hell yes! Let's get wet!_

Prefrontal cortex: _Calm down. Just wash off the flobberworm secretions._

Amygdala: _Forget that! Let's get some of Draco's secretions on us!_

Prefrontal: _Maybe later. First we need to clean off the worm goo and regulate our dopamine levels._

Hermione wrenched her hand from Draco's and rushed toward the emergency shower; she felt tingly and flushed all over. Her hands shook as she tore the buttons of her blouse open; her nipples were hard and tight against the lace of her brassiere. She couldn't fight her body's pulsing need as she ran her palms over the hard nubs before trailing her hands to the button of her trousers.

 _“Bowmp chicka wow wow!”_ her amygdala cheered as she peeled the soft trousers down her legs.

 _“Focus!”_ her highly evolved frontal lobe scolded.

Hermione kicked the trousers free of her feet and stepped under the shockingly cold water.

She yelped as the icy stream ran over her body. The effect on her arousal level was almost instant.

Meanwhile in Draco's brain…

Amygdala: _This is not a drill! We have a semi-naked Hermione Granger! A semi-naked, wet Hermione Granger._

Prefrontal cortex: _We have waited for this moment! Do not screw it up!_

Draco watched in awe as the cold water ran over Hermione's smooth skin; her lace underthings did little to hide the glorious bounty beneath. Without any additional encouragement from his cerebral cortex, he made his move.

Hermione shrieked as she felt hands grasp her waist. She turned to take in a fully clothed Draco, eyes dilated wide with lust, his breath coming out in short pants. _Ah, the good old autonomic nervous system._

“Were you exposed to the flobberworms again?” Hermione asked through chattering teeth.

“No.”

That was all the confirmation she required. Hermione grasped the back of Draco's head and drew him into a needy kiss.

His approving growl was muffled by their connected mouths.

Draco broke their kiss and turned off the water. He took in her blown pupils and the look of wonder on her face.

“Are the worms still affecting you?” he asked, just a tinge of uncertainty in his voice.

“No,” Hermione smiled.

With another primal growl Draco returned his lips to Hermione's as he pushed her into the wall of the shower, dropped his hand to the backs of her thighs, and picked her up. On instinct she wrapped her wet thighs around him.

Hermione moaned loudly at the feel of his engorged cock pressing against her core. _Thank you, Merlin for the tunica albuginea!_ She squirmed and writhed to drive the friction higher.

Draco trailed kisses over her jaw, down her neck and to the tops of her wet lace-covered breasts.

“Yes, Draco!” she cried as he pressed his body more firmly against hers.

Soaking wet, they ground against each other; everywhere he touched her sensory receptors in her skin rushed synapses to her brain driving the sensations to an unbearable peak.

“Hermione, is everything—Oh, Godric, no!”

It was Harry.

She had been so close. So. Close.

“Oh, no. Oh, God! I—I can't…” Harry stood with his hands over his eyes, stammering his disgust.

Draco reluctantly put Hermione back on her feet and quickly fetched a towel from the cupboard.

“Everything hunky-dory in here?” Theo asked with a shit-eating grin plastered all over his bunny-slipper-wearing arse.

“It was until you two idiots barged in,” Draco groused.

“How so?” Theo looked sincerely curious. “Your trousers are still on.”

“But Hermione's naked! And wet!” Harry shrieked.

Draco looked murderous. Hermione intervened.

“Not anymore, Harry. You can open your eyes.” Harry spread his fingers to see that Hermione was now adequately covered in a bathrobe and dropped his hands to his sides, sighing in relief.

“What are you doing here, Harry?”

Wide-eyed with a bright flush to his cheeks, Harry jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The front door was open.”

Draco's lip curled into a sneer. “So you thought you'd just walk on in—”

“Draco,” Hermione sniffed, folding her arms across her front in a belated and ineffective attempt at conserving her own modesty, despite that she already wore a robe. The blond's mouth snapped shut, his expression innocent as he turned to her.

Hermione frowned at their interlopers. With a grimace, she noticed Theo had acquired a dish of mixed nuts and couldn't help but wonder how long he had been present.

“Did you need something, Harry?” she asked, uncomfortable at the thought.

Harry gave an awkward sort of shrug, looking as if he wished he hadn't come over at all. “Luna said there was a problem with one of your experiments. Something about excessively copulating flobberworms—I wanted to be sure everything was alright.”

“Everything _was_ alright,” Draco quipped.

“Speaking of,” Theo interrupted, snacking on a cashew, “what was that most recent explosion?”

Hermione rolled her eyes at the three of them. “Draco tried to put Veela hair into a Potion of Persuasion.”

Theo snickered. “Why'd you do that, mate?”

“Mind your own,” Draco scoffed, looking put out. He raised a brow at Hermione. “By the way, why were you reading my letters?”

Floundering, she motioned a hand at Theo's lack of attire to divert the attention from her. “Why haven't you got a shirt on?”

Theo grinned, and his head dropped into a teasing tilt. “I may or may not have been preoccupied upstairs when the explosion went off. Sorry, I didn't have time to collect my own graphic t-shirt with an inappropriate slogan.”

“Upstairs,” Draco grumbled, a string of curses coming from his mouth as he ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Do I want to know?”

Theo offered a tight smile. “I doubt it.”

“Enough,” Hermione ground out through her teeth. “Harry, what did Luna say about the flobberworms? Did she find anything unusual?”

“All she said was that she took some home with her and nearly suffocated on the sheer mass of them by the time she woke up the next morning,” Harry said with a shrug, scratching the back of his neck.

Hermione fought the urge to hurl at the mental image.

“Look, two things, because I was _sort of_ in the middle of something,” Theo interrupted with a quick wave. “Draco, mate, why are you keeping suspect letters from your potions master out in the open on your desk? Poor form, I'd say. Everyone knows you keep that with your porn in your unmentionables drawer, clearly.” He turned on Harry with a grimace. “Secondly – that's terrifying. Luna knew what we were doing down here, so that's on her if she decided to keep the slimy tossers in her bedroom.”

Draco looked as if he'd swallowed something unpleasant.

Theo went on. “So we're done here?”

A high pitched voice called, “Theeeeeooooo!” from upstairs, and he winced, his brows high as he bared his teeth in an unconvincing smile.

“Got to go,” he whispered, and left.

His jaw clenched, Draco released a tight breath and ignored Theo. “As you can see, Potter, everything is fine here.”

“But we appreciate your concern,” Hermione cut in, firing Draco a hard stare.

“Right,” Harry choked, his gaze sweeping between them: Hermione scantily clad beneath a robe, and Draco drenched to the bone in his clothes. “I can—er, I can see that… sort of. I think I ought to go, come to think of it. Other plans.”

Hermione hesitated, giving him a kind smile. “I'll owl you later?”

“Perfect,” Harry exclaimed, brandishing two thumbs up. Then he fled the lab.

Hermione was all too aware of the lingering presence of Draco at her side as he slipped his hands into his pockets, struggling with the soaked fabric of his jeans.

“So,” he drawled, dragging out the syllable. Her gaze flickered to meet his grey eyes that were presently giving her an expectant stare. “How are you?”

She gave him a look. “I'm fine.” She released a long breath, shifting on her bare feet. “So this—” she cut herself off, shaking her head. The visitors had managed to sufficiently cool her libido, and now in the aftermath, she felt awkward and as if she needed to fill the space between them with words. “Right. So _this_ —all of your horrendous, scientific pick-up lines—”

“All legitimate,” he clipped, pressing his lips together.

“Really?” she asked, curious despite herself. “Did you actually think some of those would work?”

“You like science, Hermione,” Draco said, as if that explained everything. His lips twitched.

She opened her mouth to respond, to tell him that what she actually liked was _him_ —despite the awful lines—when there was a great rumble through the lab. A foreboding quake shook the floor, and she stumbled, turning to him with wide eyes as the rumble grew louder.

“Please,” she whispered, “tell me you didn't put anything else unusual in that potion.”

He groaned, pressing his eyes shut. “I can't tell you that.” He began to back away in the opposite direction of the potions area, dragging her with him by her wrist. “What I can tell you is, _GET DOWN_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the Easter Eggs from chapter 2. We're tickled that you found so many this time! The shoutouts are a little thank you to our loyal readers who even said which fic/pop culture reference it is 💙💚💜💛❤. If you think you found one, we'll be thrilled to see you mentioning it in your comment.
> 
> The Eagle's Nest - HeartOfAspen (shoutout to blueeyedsue!)  
> Detraqueé - HystaracaL (this one is well hidden ;) )  
> Somewhere Down the Line - niffizzle (shoutout to blueeyedsue!)  
> Holiday Surprises/I am Jack's Broken Heart - Kyonomiko (shoutout to mhcalamas!)  
> Appendices - sarena (shoutout to jordoofus and weestarmeggie17 who even sent a screenshot to sarena by whatsapp 😁)  
> School’s Not Out For Summer - LightOfEvolution (another well placed one :) )  
> Dr. No - James Bond (watch it!)  
> Looking Glass - kyonomiko (shoutout to mhcalamas and QuinTalon79!)  
> Chronos Historia/The Creature You Know - In_Dreams (shoutout to mhcalamas!)  
> YETI cup - Dramionerds (yes, that's us) inside joke  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What other…" she sucked in a breath; her skin felt warm, so she loosened the tie on her bathrobe, "...what other jokes do you have?"  
> (Hermione, hungry and thirsty and _naturally_ randy, thank you very much)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all are humbled by the kind, hilarious and outright wonderful comments we got on this story! Thank you so much for reading, kudosing, and leaving your thoughts. You make our days! 💙💚💜💛❤
> 
> By now, you know the deal. Chapter first, then last update's Easter Eggs. We love reading your findings!

Once upon a time, a young Hermione Granger, aged ten, had wished to be a scientist. Perhaps she would become a famous chemist, or find a cure for cancer, or maybe even put a stop to the need for testing on animals for human medical or beauty products (though that last one had a tinge of animal right activist, ten-year-old Hermione could not be bothered with such details). At eleven however, when it was revealed that she was, in fact, a bona fide witch, her thoughts of growing up to become a famous scientist went directly down the drain. After all, was it not more exciting to be able to produce magic than clinical results?

As the years wore on, she seldom revisited her childhood dream, except on occasion, when she would reflect on how similar potions were to chemistry. It was not until she had graduated from Hogwarts, with top NEWTs in her class, that she truly started _thinking_ about the implications of combining science with magic. Specifically - what could be achieved if the knowledge Muggles had of the scientific world, with the knowledge wizards had accumulated over millennia of practicing magic?

She had taken her NEWTs, turned down a position at the Auror office, and headed straight to college. After graduating, she had immediately set to work, blending together the knowledge she had gleaned from her two worlds, and feeling pretty confident in herself.

Hermione had never imagined it would have led to her huddling on the floor of one of the many dungeons in Malfoy Manor, wearing only a borrowed robe over her best lacy underthings, covered in sticky, wet Veela hair, and surrounded by flobberworm intestines. Specifically, amorous flobberworm intestines. Meanwhile, following the second explosion, the top-half of the room had swiftly filled with a hot-pink smoke.

She demanded, "What _IS_ this?"

"It's…" Draco murmured, flat on his stomach with his head propped up on his elbows and wiping the wet Veela hair from his face, "well… it's…"

"It smells like eau de flobberworm!" she cried in disgust, covering her nose with the sleeve of her robe.

"That's… not too far off," he admitted.

" _What?_ "

"It was Theo's idea!" he whined. "He wanted to try messing with the recipe for Amortentia to see if he could produce something stronger…"

"He wanted to produce something _stronger_ than Amortentia?" she screeched. " _This_ is why you both were so adamant to breed specialized flobberworms?"

"Well, yes…"

"And how were you going to test this?"

"Well, actually… my parents offered."

Hermione closed her eyes, trying once again to block out the sound of a headboard repeatedly hitting the wall. Meanwhile, the haze of pink smoke was beginning to grow thicker. "Is that why your parents have been so obsessed with Theo?"

"Er, no. They haven't tried it yet…"

"Theeeeeeooooooo…" two simultaneous voices echoed from one of the upstairs chambers.

Draco winced.

"So…?" Hermione pressed.

Draco looked guilty, "So I added his flobberworm-Amortentia to my Potion of Persuasion."

"Good Godric, Draco!" Taking a deep breath, she said, "Okay. We need to get out of here. I have no intention of shagging you for the first time because we are both inhaling a limbic system cocktail. My hypothalamus functions just fine on its own thanks."

The door slammed open and a familiar pair of bunny slippers reappeared. "Salazar's sake! I leave for two minutes and you've ruined my potion!"

"Move, Theo, this space is contaminated—again." In fact, Hermione had already begun to feel a tingling sensation all over her skin, the lower the pink haze crept toward her. Suddenly, her desires to turn Malfoy's pet squid into sashimi, or question him about his suspect porn stash seemed less and less important. In fact, she was quite certain that what she really was interested in, in that moment, was removing her robe.

 _Stop it, brain, you've just been drinking_ , she tried to tell it. She was going to throttle both of those boys!

But it was no use—in the time that Draco and Theo had taken to arguing over whose fault the explosion was, the haze had utterly enveloped the room.

Glancing over at the two, she sized the two wizards up. While Theo was fit, he was also wearing bunny slippers—not to mention, he was in all likelihood shagging both Lucius and Narcissa. _Lucissa_. Hermione giggled. What would the name for a Theo-Narcissa-Lucius triad be? _Thelucissa? Narluceo? Luthisseo?_ Again, she could not stifle a laugh.

Then there was Draco—and the fact that he had just admitted that he'd had a thing for her for years, and that she was beginning to feel the same.

"Draco?" she queried huskily.

He turned to her, even as Theo had begun trying to clear away the haze of the potion, still shirtless, and this time even sans his pajama pants. Still, Hermione barely noticed that he was only wearing his underwear; her attention was for Draco only.

"What other…" she sucked in a breath; her skin felt warm, so she loosened the tie on her bathrobe, "...what other jokes do you have?"

His eyes flickered to the expanse of chest just above her breasts that was exposed now, all flush with the effects of the flobberworm-Amortentia-persuasion potion, then back to her eyes. He swallowed heavily, "A photon checks into a hotel and is asked if he needs any help with his luggage. He said, 'No, I'm travelling light.'"

She sidled up beside him, loosening the robe even further. Theo groaned from the other side of the room. "Keep it on at least until I leave!" He was desperately trying to clear the cauldron of its contents. Meanwhile, the pink haze continued to grow thicker.

"That's a great joke," she murmured, brushing a hand through his hair. She had to pause to pull a great clump of wet Veela hair off of his head, but resumed as if nothing had happened. "Tell me another."

"Hermione…" he whined, his pupils blown wide. "You… you…"

"Nope!" Theo yelled. Despite only wearing said bunny slippers and underwear, he had begun racing around to control the haze now, which was reducing just a bit. "Not here. Not now."

"Why _not_?" she pouted.

"Because... because!" Draco waffled, seemingly clearly unsure himself.

"But Draco," Hermione insisted, stepping closer to him, "think about it…!"

"I _am_ thinking about it!" He pulled at the collar of his shirt. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm so hot right now, you're denaturing my proteins!"

It was the final straw. Hermione was a sucker for denatured proteins. With a growl, she jumped him and began snogging him without mercy. Gods, it felt so right, so… so...

"Merlin, keep your clothes on!" Theo pleaded. "It's like the zoo in Springtime in this room." He marched over to Hermione, yanking her off of Draco. "Come on, I'm bringing you upstairs."

"But _whyyyyy_?"

"It's for your own good. If you still want to shag him after you've got the smoke out of your system, then by all means, you're welcome to do so. In fact, perhaps Lucissa will lend you their sex dungeon…"

She recoiled. Horny as she was, she was still repulsed. "I'm not sure what bothers me more… the fact that there is a sex dungeon, or the fact that you referred to them as their couple name."

"You were literally just saying it out loud," he remarked flippantly.

"But that… that was in my head…"

"See, the fact that you believe that just proves you need to lie down. Meanwhile, you—" he turned to Draco, who was still standing where he had landed when Theo had separated the two of them, "—also need to lie down. But you'll have to wait, since Hermione's in the worse state here."

Without further ado, Theo frog-marched Hermione up the stairs and out of the potions dungeon. The moment they were out of Draco's earshot, he began to lecture, "The thing about couple names, Hermione, is if you ship someone, they don't always have a melodious couple name. I work with what I've got. Come on, let's get you to a spare bedroom and I'll call one of the house elves to clean you up."

Despite everything, she giggled, "I'm glad you kept the house elves safe, Theo. I was worried about them."

***o0o***

Hermione had drifted off once she had settled into the spare room at Malfoy Manor she liked to refer to as the blue room. The lust-filled haze, the shower, and the subsequent need to jill herself off had drained her entirely.

She woke slowly, noting the sun had travelled across the sky and started to sink behind the low hills of the western grounds. Looking down at herself, she took stock. Still dressed in only her overly fluffy bathrobe, still containing all her necessary parts, it struck her that she had survived far too many lab catastrophes in just a couple of days.

But all of that had to take a back seat to the most surprising part of the entire affair. Draco Malfoy was sincerely trying to get in her pants. And, by Merlin, she decided, she was going to let him.

Hermione swiped the blankets off her legs and stood, looking for her shoes and wand as she put on her freshly cleaned attire. Should she just track him down and jump him right there? That is, provided he wasn't doing any more dangerous experiments, nor in the company of Theo and the Malfoy power couple.

She gave a little shiver, thinking about that entire dynamic. If Theo became a permanent fixture of the Manor master suite, would Draco have to call him Daddy? It was probably not terribly kind, but that made her snicker as she made her way down the corridor.

She turned a corner to find Lucius sitting by a large window, an easel before him. Like his only son, he had reading glasses perched on his nose and looked at her over the top of the rims. "Oh. You're still here then."

"And you're not doing depraved things to Theo. Did he and Narcissa kick you out?" she asked a little cruelly. Would the man get jealous?

Quirking one eyebrow at her, he scoffed in turn. "Hardly. My lovely wife is sleeping off a very active day."

Not particularly wanting to banter with the man all evening, Hermione changed the subject. "Have you seen Draco?"

Lucius gave her a searching look. "That depends, Miss Granger. Do you have intentions to continue to torture my son and heir, or have you finally come to your senses?"

"I… wait, what?"

Unimpressed, was a good word to describe the continued look on his face. "Confused is not your colour." After a beat, he let out a great sigh and gestured down the hall Hermione had been travelling down. "The solarium, girl. I like to call it his 'conflict room' because he goes there to pout. I imagine he will be either very happy or very disappointed to see you, depending on what you do from here."

She gazed in the direction she was being sent. It seemed to her it would be pretty cut and dry. Draco had come on to her. She was very interested in reciprocating…

She grinned, looking back at the Lord of the Manor. "Thanks, Lucius. Maybe we'll see you at breakfast." With a bit of a wink, she flounced down the hall to find her little chemist.

***o0o***

The solarium was on the opposite side of Malfoy Manor, and Hermione couldn't get there fast enough. She picked up speed, and it wasn't long before she pushed open the glass door with a wide, eager smile. Through the windows, the setting sun painted the sky a subtle shade of pink that reminded her far too much of a particular potion gone wrong. She'd still have to properly chide Theo for his reckless idea of creating something stronger than Amortentia, but that could be saved for another day when she hadn't recently endured multiple explosions and lust-induced states of mind. Besides, there was a different wizard for her to focus on right now.

Off in the far corner stood Draco, his hair still out of place, brooding more than a freshly hatched chick. He turned at the sound of her arrival, a hesitant grin dawning his lips.

"Look who finally—"

Before Draco could finish the thought, Hermione darted across the glass enclosure and threw her arms around him, pulling him in for a hard, firm kiss.

No flobberworms. No Potion of Persuasion. No veela hair. Just the intoxicating combination of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin infiltrating her pleasure centres as the sensation of his lips pressed against hers ignited every dendronite of her afferent neurons.

 _Sight:_ Nothing but pitch black.

 _Taste:_ Predictably like firewhisky.

 _Hear:_ The deep hum of approval.

 _Smell:_ Northern spruce with a dash of citrus.

 _Touch:_ Hands gripped around her waist, pulling her in closer.

Lucius had nothing to worry about; Hermione had most certainly come to her senses.

When they pulled away, Draco smirked at her with the smirkiest smirk that ever smirked.

"So all those science pick-up lines finally paid off, huh?"

Hermione bit down on her lower lip, her body still buzzing from the lingering neurotransmitters. "I guess you could say I'm a bit Charmed by you."

"Are you now?" Draco toyed, tucking one of her curls behind an ear. "Say it again. Once More with Feeling. And admit that without me, you're Incomplete."

"Oh, Hell No!" Hermione protested with a giggle. "Don't push your luck, Draco Malfoy. Nothing is Set in Stone here."

Draco chuckled. "Fight it all you want, but you're now stuck with me, and I'm never letting you too far out of my Distance again." He intertwined their fingers, letting his vision temporarily settle on the connection, before he peered back up at Hermione. "Actually, I've got one final question for you that I've been saving for this occasion."

Hermione canted her head curiously and then nodded for Draco to continue.

His smirk returned, and with it, an impish glint in his eyes. "Does your body consist of Oxygen and Neon? Because—"

"I'm the ONe?" Hermione finished for him. She rolled her eyes and playfully smacked him on the shoulder. "Now you're just Being Silly _._ "

She stood on her toes and kissed him again, prompting a smile across his lips.

Draco kept his fingers linked with hers as he pulled her towards the solarium door, back into the manor. "Come with me," he prompted. "There's something I did while you were resting that I want to show you."

"What is it?"

Draco grinned. "You're just going to have to wait and see."

Lacing his fingers through hers, Draco led her out of the open, sun-flooded room and traipsed along the wall. He ducked around the next door frame and relaxed visibly when the room beyond was found to be empty.

"Why are you so secreti—" Hermione started, but he shushed her with his index finger on her lips. Promptly flicking her tongue out, she took note of his widening pupils with a smug smirk. She'd outsmirk him _any_ given time.

"My parents," he whispered. "There's no saying where they are most of the time, and I tire of their incessant 'Why haven't you brought a nice, young lady home, Draco?' or 'When I was your age, you were already out of your nappies!' or 'Do you even want children, son?'" He dropped the nasally voice he had adopted and continued, "If they want little babies, they can just go make their own!"

From the back of the house, Hermione could just make out the rhythmical whomping of wood against plaster.

Draco screwed up his face and turned a not-so-delicate shade of green. Almost imperceptibly, he hissed, "Please let them use protection charms. Please. I don't want a step-sibling sired by my best nerd-friend."

Hermione kicked his shin. "And how am _I_ not your best nerd friend?"

He spluttered. "Uh." After grappling unsuccessfully for a sophisticated answer, he blurted out, "Because you're my nerd- _girlfriend_?"

She felt the corners of her mouth turn up and she squeezed his fingers. Hard, just as a reminder. The returned just-as-hard squeeze deepened her smile.

Tugging on her hand, he tiptoed to the stairs leading down to the dungeons. Hermione rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She really didn't want another flobberworm-lust-goo bath today. While she was more than willing to try that at _some_ point, with his consent of course, she was also hungry and thirsty and _naturally_ randy, thank you very much.

The vault door to the lair lab was open; harsh light and the smell of disinfectant attacked her senses. She pursed her lips. This had better be good, or the first thing Draco would have to do in his new role as boyfriend would be to grovel.

From the look of it the lab was clean as it ever was, the floor back to its usual dullness built up from thick layers of various spilled potions over the years. Even the one square metre where liquidised unicorn horn had been spilled last year—that part of the floor was probably worth a quarter-million galleons now—was back to its iridescent glamour.

Hermione hesitated when Draco made to cross his retractable bridge, but then she threw a dirty—and hungry—look to the inhabitants of his indoor villain pond before following him into his most private retreat.

With a flourish, he presented the innermost inside of his inner sanctum. A small, intimate table was set for two, while a tray hovered beside it, laden with different foods under stasis charms. With a flick of his wrist, he uncorked some wine and, after her confirming nod, tipped the dusty bottle to fill both their glasses.

Hermione scanned the room, her gaze lingering on one special section. He sidled up to her and offered her a glass before they clinked them softly. Cocking his head, he led her to the shelf with his adult collection. Next to it, he had cleared a couple of rows.

He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "For the books you'd like to have close while working on your favourite theories here." He nosed her ear and pressed a kiss under it. "Technical manuals, textbooks, essays of all kinds. Whatever you need," he continued, swiping his tongue across her pulse point. "And I wouldn't mind seeing one or two more raucous works appearing. I'll share mine with you, of course."

In her mind, she already saw herself setting up not only a shelf with books, but a magically-adjusted computer. Not long ago, she had discovered websites where independent authors published their stories, and she'd been sucked into reading some about a clever know-it-all and her bumbling friends saving their fictional world. She'd never admit that she had fallen into the rabbit hole of that smart brunette woman paired up with her blond former nemesis, though. Especially the more… outspoken stories of that particular couple.

She'd put a printer on her list, too, so she could read those in more comfortable positions.

Hermione couldn't suppress the silent moan escaping her throat. The image of her browsing through one of his naughty magazines while he pinched her nipples, whispering filthy comments into her ear, made her shift her stance, secretly rubbing her thighs together.

"I'll even let you bring your orange menace. Although I swear Crookshanks must have dragon blood somewhere in his line of ancestors. But first, let's eat!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands together and effectively extinguishing any building sexual tension. Wiggling his eyebrows, he added, "We'll need the energy."

Tucking her hand in his elbow, he guided her back to the table. The dark candles were half-burnt already. With a wordless charm, she checked for fire-resistance. After all, her books were almost here—at least in her mind, which meant it was as good as already done.

With a pompous gesture, Draco lifted the opaque charm on the plates with the appetisers. Under it, a few fried sticks appeared and made their way onto both of their plates. Hermione cut into one and studied its insides. It looked a little like sashimi but she doubted the Malfoys would consider serving denatured and rearranged proteins in their worst nightmares. Carefully, she dipped it into the side sweet chili sauce served in an accompanying ramekin, chewing on it with contempt for all mankind, just to figure that it actually tasted good.

"What do you think? The elves were inspired to try new flobberworm recipes as soon as they heard about the flobber-flood."

Hermione felt all blood draining from her face. Yes, she'd had flobberworms before—sauted and pickled and boiled and stewed, every other week in Hogwarts—but since the Recent Accident…

She spit her piece out. Hoping that this wouldn't turn into the Worst Date Ever (TM) and that Draco wouldn't take too much offence, she choked out, "Was that one of the specially bred ones?"

He looked affronted. "Of course not! They're in the quarantine cage and Luna took the rest with her. She even tempered them with some sort of humour so they won't reproduce that insanely often. I mean, they had a proliferation rate of 0.1 or so."

Hermione looked at him with her usual attempt to try figuring out what Draco wizarded again from Muggle words he didn't quite know or understand. "Hormones? Like contraceptive hormones? As in The Pill?"

"I guess," he muttered. "Things work differently in our world."

"They do not!" Hermione started to argue. Then, after taking a deep breath, she continued more calmly, "I'll provide you with the appropriate materials, including graphic diagrams." She raised her eyebrow in a challenge. "And you already know how to brew a Shag-A-Thon-Without-Consequen-tion potion."

"You said it was for Potter," he grumbled.

"It was!"

"Good!"

"Good!" She pushed the half-chewed bit of flobberworm to the side of her plate.

"Didn't you like them? They are a treasured Wizarding specialty. We had them not often enough at Hogwarts."

She desperately tried to save the evening and the many orgasms she was hoping for. "I… I'd rather save some room for dessert!"

Draco looked at his half-eaten flobber fries and agreed, "Fair point. I hope you'll like the main course. The recipe reaches back to an ancestor of our house elves, which," he added hastily, "all have been employed and fairly paid even before you initiated Granger's Law."

Hermione smiled at him, proud that he had managed to leave his former prejudices behind, growing into such an adorable specimen of wizard. With a big ego, and a wand-size which hopefully matched.

With an intricate flourish, he lifted the charm on the next tray, revealing what lay underneath.

Hermione recoiled.

On a straw-like nest of fragrant herbs, sat a feathered pigeon, its head cocked as if it was about to coo.

She blinked once, twice, thrice.

The bird didn't move.

Draco observed her with a proud face. "Our Olla is the direct scion of Coquus the Magnificent, who was Julius Caesar's house elf and cook. This is Olla's modern adaptation of one of the 657,980 courses served at his master's and Cleopatra's wedding orgy."

Transfixed on the glimmer of the glossy neck feathers, Hermione poked the pigeon with the pointy end of her fork. It still didn't move. "I guess it's all about inner values," she muttered. A few moments after the silver of her cutlery touched the bird, the feathers folded away, revealing the brown, crispy skin of a grilled, and very dead, pigeon.

After carefully verifying its edibility, she tucked in with more appetite than she'd expected. Her hormonal rollercoaster might have been a reason, but the delectable flavours added to it. Draco was a great conversationalist, and over the course of the meal, they discussed not only the magical research they each planned to cover, but also gummi bears and the use of portraits as sources for historical events.

Leaning back in her chair, Hermione groaned a little and pondered opening the top button of her trousers. But, she guessed that was something she'd let Draco do later. In case he could roll her to his bedroom or something, because she surely didn't want to move much within the next hour.

"I've prepared a little surprise for afters," he announced after he'd patted his lips with a damask napkin. "It's dessert with entertainment, so to speak."

Snapping his fingers and swirling his wand twice, a new plate floated to the middle of the table. The lifting stasis charm revealed a dark chocolate lava cake garnished with pomegranate seeds, roasted pine nuts, and rose petals.

Looking at him from under her lashes, Hermione queried, "Do you really think we'll need more aphrodisiacal encouragement?"

Draco furrowed his brows, first eyeing her mouth, then the chocolate wonder with increasing scepticism. "What do you mean? That's perfectly normal chocolate cake." He Wingarium LevioSA'ed two steaming cups of latte macchiato to them each, pink tendrils rising from the hot liquid and bursting into pink glitter as they fizzled into the air.

Hermione really hoped the glitter was edible. She _so_ did; it had settled everywhere.

Just when she was about finished with dessert, she was startled by an unexpected nip on her toe. As she peered down with her dark balls of sight, she saw a line of flobberworms crawling between their feet. The critters had red bows around what she assumed was the front section of their bodies, and it seemed as if they were performing some kind of worm ballet. Rapidly blinking, she looked askance at Draco.

"Courtesy of Luna," he explained proudly. "She found out that a subspecies of our breeding attempts were artistically gifted." Another swirl of his wand-hand started slow music playing and he got up, offering his hand with a slight bow. "Would you care to dance?"

"And they aren't going to affect us like the aphrodisiac ones did?"

"Merely to set the mood with some quality entertainment. Luna promised me."

"Alright."

Hermione accepted his hand and got up as gracefully as was possible, considering how stuffed she was. It wasn't very gracile, she admitted to herself, but the memories of her past dance lessons were a welcome catalyst to easily falling into Draco's lead. Leaning into him, she exhaled slowly, the sensation of his warm skin alluring enough to ponder the best strategy of getting him out of his garments as soon as possible. She'd have to make sure to cover any remaining flobber-love-bites with her own, after all.

The slow background music was soothing, despite the naughty turn of her thoughts. Meanwhile, the flobberworms arranged themselves in a line and began to chug along in circles around them before forming a heart. Only now, Hermione noticed that their tiny bows changed colour depending on the angle of light. She squeezed Draco a little harder, lying her cheek flush on the hard planes of his chest. This was probably the single most romantic thing anyone ever had done for her; it definitely surpassed Terry's trip to the piss-yellow M a 10 to the 10th times.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"You remind me of my pinky toe."

She leaned back in his arms and appraised him, one eyebrow twitching up. "Do I want to know why?"

He grinned. "Because, at one point, I'm going to bang you on every furniture in this room."

Her gaze swept over the desk and the too-plush-for-a-lab rug, wandering to the shelves and the granite stone walls. Looking back at him, her smile turned feral.

"You're on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. 
> 
> Alright. 
> 
> We LIED. 
> 
> This hilarious journey is not quite finished just yet. There's a spontaneous epilogue. But we promise it's not like JKR's! ;) And we promise it'll be up very soon <3, including the resolutions to this chapter's eggy eggs.💙💛💚
> 
> Ladies and gentlemen (we kind of doubt a lot of men read this, but if you do, you've got good taste, like for real!), here are last chapter's Easter Eggs in no particular order:
> 
> Recipe for a Heartache - niffizzle (hint: yumyum!)  
> The Eagle's Nest - HeartOfAspen (shoutout to blueeyedsue!)  
> Looking Glass - Kyonomiko (shoutout to blueeyedsue! also, don't we all love bunny slippers?)  
> Chronos Historia - In_Dreams (shoutout to blueeyedsue! woman, you were on a roll <3)
> 
>  
> 
> Yes, we really didn't have a lot of them in chapter 3, but we're sure you found plenty more this time. Bring them on! ❤


	5. Epilogue? What Epilogue?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue, what Epilogue?  
> (pretty much every Dramione shipper, ever)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big, fat THANK YOU to all readers, kudosers, and commenters! It made our days to see you enjoying and laughing at and with us, and we're incredibly happy to have put a smile on your faces 💙💚💜💛❤.
> 
> Buckle up as we jump into hyper warp speed and embark on the final chapter of this nerd adventure to go where no fanfiction writer has gone before… (cue Lucissa/Theo). We don't quite know how to tell you that the last chapter is smut-less *le gasp*. But you'll never know, we just might write the smutty follow-up one day :). Special thanks to HystaracaL for being our cheerleader and to you for tolerating our silliness throughout this endeavour!

**Epilogue? What Epilogue?**

Meanwhile in the master boudoir of Malfoy Manor:

"Lucius," Narcissa hissed. "How often have I told you to not smoke in the boudoir?"

"Other than the 372,648 times we've gleefully fulfilled our marital responsibilities?" Unimpressed, he suckled on his cigar and turned to Theo, who discreetly waved the tendrils of stifling smoke away from his face. "The successful turn of events more than justifies a smoke-after, don't you think?"

Theo swallowed, gaze fixed on the dainty, pale hand on his knee. From the corner of his eye, he could just see the ear-tips of the bunnies on his slippers. "It was a pleasurable outcome, indeed." An especially vigorous slap against the wall resounded through the room and he cleared his throat. "I'd never expected this plan to work. No offence to your Slytherinniness, Mrs and Mr Malfoy, of course."

Narcissa's affected tittering was counterpointed by the sudden steel of her grip on Theo's knee. "Please, darling, we've established that you should call us by our first names."

"But, Mrs—Narcissa," Theo spluttered, "Draco and Hermione are basically married now by Malfoy standards, so you don't have to keep up the charade."

Narcissa's eyes flickered to her husband. "We might," she started and made a pregnant pause before continuing, "have been not as forthcoming with our reasons as may have been appropriate." Her hand lost its fierce grasp and meandered further up his thigh, making him squirm. The bunny ear-tips quivered.

"I don't understand," he admitted, heat rising in his cheeks. Something else was rising, too.

Lucius exhaled heavily. To himself, he muttered, "Is the Gryffinboorish lack of the proper deciphering of brilliantly cunning undertones contagious?"

The shrill shrieks over the increasing staccato of wood on masonry pierced Theo's ears. If Hermione ever found out that the recent version of the Potion of Persuasion had a persistent effect on house elves, and that the elder but very attractive Malfoys didn't hesitate to use it for their ruthless means to secure their nerdy son an equally nerdy match, even if it meant loud, passionate elf-banging on their bed to spur the targets on… Merlin help him.

A long-fingered hand settled on his other knee, the sound of Lucius' heavy breathing interrupting Theo's thoughts.

"We have a proposition for you."

_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not gonna lie: We'd love to see more of the Narcissa/Lucius/Theo pairing!
> 
> Chapter 4's Easter Eggs, in no particular order:
> 
> Sky Of Dragons - boredravenvlaw620 (a well-hidden one ;) )  
> Being Silly - LightOfEvolution (shoutout to mcal and blueeyedsue!)  
> Incomplete - niffizzle (shoutout to blueeyedsue!)  
> Set In Stone - HeartOfAspen (shoutout to ruthy4vrsmoaked, mcal, and blueeyedsue!)  
> Distance - In_Dreams (shoutout to ruthy4vrsmoaked and blueeyedsue!)  
> Charmed - sarena (shoutout to blueeyedsue and ruthy4vrsmoaked!)  
> Borrower of the Night - LightOfEvolution/HeartOfAspen (well hidden for sure)  
> Once More With Feeling - kyonomiko (shoutout to blueeyedsue and ruthy4vrsmoaked!)  
> This, Too, Is Sacred - HeartOfAspen (well spotted, blueeyedsue!)  
> Looking Glass - kyonomiko (shoutout to mcal!)  
> The Great Gummi Incident - HeartOfAspen/sarena (shoutout to blueeyedsue!)  
> Hermione's Swottiness - JKR (yesss, ruthy4vrsmoaked!)  
> Terrible synonyms for body parts, especially eyes - most writers at some point in their career (shoutout to AuntieL! We're still laughing at this expression, ngl)
> 
> Thank you for playing this little guessing game with us! We had so much fun referencing each other's works and hiding the eggs!
> 
> For now, this is the end of our epic saga. Probably. Never say never, Nerds United and all. Live long and prosper.


End file.
